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WILLIAM H. WHITSITT, ACADEMIC FREEDOM, AND DENOMINATIONAL CONTROL

WILLIAM H. WHITSITT, ACADEMIC FREEDOM, AND DENOMINATIONAL CONTROL

Chapter:

(p.189)
5 WILLIAM H. WHITSITT, ACADEMIC FREEDOM, AND DENOMINATIONAL CONTROL

Source:

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1859-2009

Author(s):

Gregory A. Wills

Publisher:

Oxford University Press

DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377149.003.0005

This chapter focuses on William Heth Whitsitt, who succeeded John Broadus as president of Southern Seminary in May 1895. Whitsitt's tenure was short and tumultuous, and the controversy he precipitated cost him his position. The presenting issue in the controversy was his claim that in 1641 Baptists invented immersion as the mode of baptism. Most Southern Baptists found the claim troubling, and many thought it contrary to scripture. But Whitsitt's ultimate offense was betrayal of denominational trust—common Baptists could not get past the sneering tone with which he corrected his own denomination. He was president of a seminary established as a guardian of Baptist orthodoxy, but he had disparaged Baptist views in a way that broadly discredited the denomination.

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PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.oxfordscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2017. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use (for details see http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy).date: 13 December 2017